Brasilia - The processing of the Special Tax Regime for Data Center Services (Redata), a government tax incentive program to attract investment to the sector, has stalled again, this time in the Senate.
The main parliamentary fronts representing the productive sector in Congress are beginning to organize a political pressure campaign to unblock the plenary vote. But the window to vote on a bill that doesn't even have a rapporteur in the Senate yet is short. The atmosphere is already that of a pre-election campaign – several parliamentarians will seek re-election or support the election of allies to state governments and assemblies, as well as to the National Congress itself.
At the end of last year, the government of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) issued a provisional measure (MP) that eliminated taxes such as IPI, PIS/Cofins, and import tax on items used by data centers, but the Legislature allowed it to expire. The intention was always to increase data processing in Brazil.
During the four months that the law was in effect, these benefits were effective. But as this approval period expired, the tax reduction ceased to be valid, generating insecurity among investors who had been planning to invest billions of reais in the Brazilian market.
After that, the government leader in the Chamber of Deputies, Representative José Guimarães (PT-CE), submitted a bill in the same vein as the Executive branch, which was eventually approved by the Chamber.
But since arriving in the Senate in February, it has stalled, even with support from parties both in the government's base and in the opposition. Even the government leader in the Senate, Randolfe Rodrigues (PT-AP), tried to reach an agreement to include Redata in the text of another bill, which dealt with tax incentives and was approved in plenary, but the strategy was unsuccessful.
Behind the scenes, the government itself blames Davi Alcolumbre (União-AP), president of the Senate, for having held up the processing of the Redata bill in the Senate, a source from the economic team privately admits to NeoFeed .
“We don’t know why it stalled,” he says. The government, however, expects the bill to be approved sometime later this year.
In this context, a coalition of fronts is being mobilized, including the Entrepreneurship Front (FPE) and the Agriculture Front (FPA), to urge Alcolumbre and other congressional leaders to try for another chance to approve Guimarães' bill.
The president of the Parliamentary Front for a Competitive Brazil, Congressman Júlio Lopes (PP-RJ), admits that the electoral backdrop and emergency issues such as the war in the Middle East "help to hinder" the voting on the Redata project, which ends up taking a back seat.
"The bill is stalled, we need to see how it will be resumed, but we have an urgent need and we will pressure the Senate and also the Chamber of Deputies to unblock the issue," Lopes told NeoFeed .
“Businesspeople are eager to make investments, but projects are stalled. Meanwhile, Milei [Javier, the Argentine president] was faster, and Argentina has already attracted billions of dollars in investment. So it’s important that we accelerate things here in Brazil.”
On Tuesday, April 7th, the Front hosted a dinner with parliamentarians, authorities from the Ministries of Finance and MDIC (Development, Industry, Trade and Services), as well as business leaders and executives from the technology sector, to discuss the real chances of the project passing in 2026.
“We need to guarantee a clear, stable and competitive environment that gives investors confidence. Without that, we risk losing this opportunity,” said FPBC Vice President Vitor Lippi (PSDB-SP) at the time.
